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US ends logistical support for Bolivia drug fight

AFP

LA PAZ — The United States is ending its logistical and financial
support of Bolivia's fight against drugs with a donation of equipment,
Washington's top envoy said.

"This is the end of an era," Larry
Memmott, the US embassy's charge d'affaires and highest-ranking official
in Bolivia, told private radio Erbol.

Within the framework of
counternarcotics conventions, the United States donated eight
helicopters, as well as three transport aircraft and a small plane.

Memmott
said the Bolivian government had been formally notified of the
donation, a move confirmed by Felipe Caceres, Bolivia's deputy social
defense minister.

A source at the US embassy in La Paz who
requested anonymity told AFP that the transfer of all material would be
made by September after talks with the Bolivian government that began
last year.

The development comes amid unresolved diplomatic
friction between La Paz and Washington, mainly in the form of verbal
attacks by the country's leftist President Evo Morales, a friend of US
foes Cuba, Iran and Venezuela who often condemns White House policies.

With
the arrival to power of Morales in January 2006, US assistance
gradually decreased to $11 million in 2013, while in years past it had
exceeded $60 million annually.

Morales expelled the US Drug
Enforcement Administration in late 2008 along with the US ambassador,
accusing them of supporting an alleged plot to overthrow him. Washington
denied the existence of such a plot and reciprocated by expelling the
Bolivian ambassador.

Morales has on several occasions said that his country was better off without the United States in fighting drug trafficking.